The Bungling Kingmaker

Of all tyrannies, C. S. Lewis wrote mordantly in God in the Dock, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. New Yorkers might nod appreciatively at this sentiment, for in his political maturity this is the sort of tyrant that outgoing mayor Michael Bloomberg fitfully became. Bored and superfluous in a mistaken third term, Bloomberg took to focusing on the picayune and the frivolous, in a style that was unlikely to win him many friends. It is, after all, one thing to tell people in detail how they must live, and quite another to imply that their opposition is a sign of unseriousness. And the latter conviction is one that Bloomberg is not afraid to share with his critics.